Why you might not want to be a CEO

WHY would you want to be a CEO? Sure, the money’s bloody great but even so most of us would prefer to have a life to what these bozos do for their paycheques. Surprisingly, it’s The Guardian that tells us how hard these CEOs work. The piece is here:

First off – and there’s no getting around this one, I’m afraid – you have to get up early. Really early: 6am is good, but 5am is better. And CEOs don’t hit snooze: most of them claim to leap out of bed in the morning…..They may be in charge of large international companies, but they are absolute slaves to email. Karen Blackett of MediaCom claims to receive 500 a day. They’re emailing first thing in the morning, and last thing at night, and throughout the day. For the modern CEO, dealing with your own email seems to be some kind of touchstone of accessibility. I’m not sure what I’d do if I got 500 emails every day, but I know what I wouldn’t do: I wouldn’t read them.

As the piece goes on to point out:

For the most part, it sounds horrible. There is no respite at the top of the greasy pole, no finish line at the end of the rat race – it’s just more of the same. What’s the point of being rich and successful if you have to get up before dawn every day to answer 500 emails? There are so many other options open to you: wage slave, failed artist, cowboy plumber, petty thief, local weirdo. The money isn’t good, but the hours are very attractive.

Now, if you are working from 5 am to 10 pm, are handling 500 emails a day plus actually doing a job, then you can complain about how much these people earn. I certainly wouldn’t do the job: I have a life. As I strongly suspect you do.

Seriously, how much would you have to be paid to do that sort of shit for a decade or two?